The Books: “Emily of New Moon” (L.M. Montgomery)

Daily Book Excerpt: YA/Children’s books:

Emily of New Moon – by L.M. Montgomery Excerpt 5!!

Okay, so this entire chapter is hilarious and beautiful – I’ll only excerpt a part of it – but it is Lucy Maud at her very best. It’s comical – it has two very distinct voices – Emily’s and Father Cassidy’s – we are in Emily’s shoes, of course – and yet, because we are a bit older than Emily, we can totally see Father Cassidy’s point of view. We can see how he sees her – and we can see how unutterably delightful he finds her. Imagine: this little black-haired girl shows up on the doorstep of the rectory one day – unannounced – terrified because you are a Catholic and she doesn’t know any Catholics and she has been taught that “papists” are bizarre and almost like they’re members of a cult – and yet she is at the end of her rope, and she has come to ask a personal favor of you. To use your influence (because we all know that Catholics do whatever their priests tell them to do) with a member of your congregation – and ask him NOT to cut down the spruce grove over by New Moon. Father Cassidy is like … wha????? But watch how she does it – and watch how Father Cassidy just falls in love with her. The guy has an Irish brogue – he’s still a bit of the old country – and Emily comes to see him, terrified, she has not told Elizabeth or Laura where she has gone. She has taken it upon herself to walk the distance to the Catholic church in the next town, to talk to Father Cassidy. She’s, like, 9 years old or something like that. Lucy Maud’s sense of humor totally shines in chapters like this one – where the events border on the absurd. Father Cassidy talks with her a while – and eventually convinces her to stay for tea. He’s fascinated by this small impish child who has shown up to demand that he intercede with a parishioner. hahahaha It’s so brazen!! Father Cassidy sees her innocence – sees her guilelessness … but he also sees something else. In the same way that Dean Priest, later, will see something else. He sees the future. Father Cassidy senses that this girl … this girl is something special. He basically just wants to keep her talking.

I’ll just excerpt a bit of it. It’s my favorite bit – the ending epiphany moment always brings a little lump to my throat. Lucy Maud is marvelous.

Excerpt from Emily of New Moon – by L.M. Montgomery

“Now you sit right down here, Elf, and be human for ten minutes and we’ll have a friendly snack.”

Emily was hungry – a nice comfortable feeling she hadn’t experienced for a fortnight. Mrs. Cassidy’s plum cake was all her reverend son claimed, and the cream cow seemed to be no myth.

“What do you think av me now?” asked Father Cassidy suddenly, finding Emily’s eyes fixed on him speculatively.

Emily blushed. She had been wondering if she dared ask another favour of Father Cassidy.

“I think you are awfully good,” she said.

“I am awfully good,” agreed Father Cassidy. “I’m so good that I’ll do what you want me to do – for I feel there’s something else you want me to do.”

“I’m in a scrape and I’ve been in it all summer. You see” — Emily was very sober — “I am a poetess.”

“Holy Mike! That is serious. I don’t know if I can do much for you. How long have you been that way?”

“Are you making fun of me?” asked Emily gravely.

Father Cassidy swallowed something besides plum cake.

“The saints forbid! It’s only that I’m rather overcome. To be after entertaining a lady av New Moon — and an elf – and a poetess all in one is a bit too much for a humble praste like meself. Have another slice av cake and tell me all about it.”

“It’s like this — I’m writing an epic.”

Father Cassidy suddenly leaned over and gave Emily’s wrist a little pinch.

“I just wanted to see if you were real,” he explained. “Yes — yes, you’re writing an epic — go on. I think I’ve got my second wind now.”

“I began it last spring. I called it The White Lady first but now I’ve changed it to The Child of the Sea. Don’t you think that’s a better title?”

“Much better.”

“I’ve got three cantos done, and I can’t get any further because there’s something I don’t know and can’t find out. I’ve been so worried about it.”

“What is it?”

“My epic,” said Emily, diligently devouring plum cake, “is about a very beautiful high-born girl who was stolen away from her real parents when she was a baby and brought up in a woodcutter’s hut.”

“One av of the seven original plots in the world,” murmured Father Cassidy.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just a bad habit av thinking aloud. Go on.”

“She had a lover of high degree but his family did not want him to marry her because she was only a woodcutter’s daughter –”

“Another of the seven plots — excuse me.”

“– so they sent him away to the Holy land on a crusade and word came back that he was killed and then Editha — her name was Editha — went into a convent –”

Emily paused for a bite of plum cake and Father Cassidy took up the strain.

“And now her lover comes back very much alive, though covered with Paynim scars, and the secret av her birth is discovered through the dying confession av the old nurse and the birthmark on her arm.”

“How did you know?” gasped Emily in amazement.

“Oh, I guessed it — I’m a good guesser. But where’s your bother in all this?”

“I don’t know how to get her out of the convent,” confessed Emily. “I thought perhaps you would know how it would be done.”

Again Father Cassidy fitted his fingers.

“Let us see, now. It’s no light matter you;’ve undertaken, young lady. How stands the case? Editha has taken the veil, not because she has a religious vocation because because she imagines her heart is broken. The Catholic Church does not release its nuns from their vows because they happen to think they’ve made a little mistake av that sort. No, no, — we must have a better reason. Is this Editha the sole child av her real parents?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, then the way is clear. If she had had any brothers or sisters you would have had to kill them off, which is a messy thing to do. Well, then, she is the sole daughter and heiress av a noble family who have for years been at deadly feud with another noble family — the family av the lover. Do you know what a feud is?”

“Of course,” said Emily, disdainfully. “And I’ve got all that in the poem already.”

“So much the better. This feud has rent the kingdom in twain and can only be healed by an alliance between Capulet and Montague.”

“Those aren’t their names.”

“No matter. This, then, is a national affair, with far-reaching issues, therefore an appeal to the Supreme Pontiff is quite in order. What you want,” Father Cassidy nodded solemnly, “is a dispensation from Rome.”

“Dispensation is a hard word to work into a poem,” said Emily.

“Undoubtedly. But young ladies who will write epic poems and who will lay the scenes thereof amid times and manners av hundreds av years ago, and will choose heroines av a religion quite unknown to them, must expect to run up against a few snags.”

“Oh, I think I’ll be able to work it in,” said Emily cheerfully. “And I’m so much obliged to you. You don’t know what a relief it is to my mind. I’ll finish the poem right up now in a few weeks. I haven’t done a thing at it all summer. But then of course I’ve been busy. Ilse Burnley and I have been making a new language.”

“Making a — new — excuse me. Did you say language?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the matter with English? Isn’t it good enough for you, you incomprehensible little being?”

“Oh, yes. That isn’t why we’re making a new one. You see in the spring, Cousin Jimmy got a lot of French boys to help plant the potatoes. I had to help too and Ilse came to keep me company. And it was so annoying to hear those boys talking French when we couldn’t understand a word of it. They did it just to make us mad. Such jabbering! So Ilse and I just made up our miunds we’d invent a new language that they couldn’t understand. We’re getting on fine and when the potato picking time comes we’ll be able to talk to each other and those boys won’t be able to understand a word we’re saying. Oh, it will be great fun!”

“I haven’t a doubt. But two girls who will go to all the trouble av inventing a new language just to get square with some poor little French boys — you’re beyond me,” said Father Cassidy, helplessly. “Goodness knows what you’ll be doing when you grow up. You’ll be Red Revolutionists. I tremble for Canada.”

“Oh, it isn’t a trouble — it’s fun. And all the girls in school are just wild because they hear us talking in it and can’t make it out. We can talk secrets right before them.”

“Human nature being what it is, I can see where the fun comes in all right. Let’s hear a sample av your language.”

“Nat millan O ste dolman bote ta Shrewsbury fernas ta poo litanos,” said Emily glibly. “That means ‘Next summer I am going to Shrewsbury woods to pick strawberries.’ I yelled that across the playground to Ilse the other day at recess and oh, how everybody stared.”

“Staring, is it? I should say so. My own poor old eyes are all but dropping out av me head. Let’s hear a bit more av it.”

“Mo tral li dead seb ad li mo trene. Mo bertral seb mo bertrene das sten dead e ting setra. That means ‘My father is dead and so is my mother. My grandfather and grandmother have been dead a long time.’ We haven’t invented a word for ‘dead’ yet. I think I will soon be able to write my poems in our language and then Aunt Elizabeth will not be able to read them if she finds them.”

“Have you written any other poetry besides your epic?”

“Oh, yes — but just short pieces — dozens of them.”

“H’m. Would you be so kind as to let me hear one av them?”

Emily was greatly flattered. And she did not mind letting Father Cassidy hear her precious stuff.

“I’ll recite my last poem,” she said, clearing her throat importantly. “It’s called Evening Dreams.”

Father Cassidy listened attentively. After the first verse a change came over his big brown face, and he began patting his fingertips together., When Emily finished she hung down her lashes and waited trembling. What if Father Cassidy said it was no good? No, he wouldn’t be so impolite – but if he bantered her as he had done about her epic — she would know what that meant.

Father Cassidy did not speak all at once. The prolonged suspense was terrible to Emily. She was afraid he could not praise and did not want to hurt her feelings by dispraise. All at once her “Evening Dreams” seemed trash and she wondered how she could ever have been silly enough to repeat it to Father Cassidy.

Of course, it was trash. Father Cassidy knew that well enough. All the same, for a child like this – and rhyme and rhythm were flawless – and there was one line — just one line — “the light of faintly golden stars” — for the sake of that line Father Cassidy suddenly said,

“Keep on, — keep on writing poetry.”

“You mean?” — Emily was breathless.

“I mean you’ll be able to do something by and by. Something — I don’t know how much — but keep on — keep on.”

Emily was so happy she wanted to cry. It was the first word of commendation she had ever received except from her father — and a father might have too high an opinion of one. This was different. To the end of her struggle for recognition Emily never forgot Father Cassidy’s “Keep on” and the tone in which he said it.

“Aunt Elizabeth scolds me for writing poetry,” she said wistfully. “She says people will think I’m as simple as Cousin Jimmy.”

“The path of genius never did run smooth. But have another piece av cake — do, just to show there’s something human about you.”

“Ve, merry ti. O del re dolman cosey aman ri sen ritter. That means, ‘No, thank you. I must be going home before it gets dark.’”

“I’ll drive you home.”

“Oh, no, no. It’s very kind of you” — the English language was quite good enough for Emily now, “But I’d rather walk. It’s — it’s — such good exercise.”

“Meaning,” said Father Cassidy with a twinkle in his eye, “that we must keep it from the old lady. Goodbye, and may you always see a happy face in your looking-glass!”

Emily was too happy to be tired on the way home. There seemed to be a bubble of joy in her heart – a shimmering, prismatic bubble. When she came to the top of the big hill and looked across to New Moon, her eyes were satisfied and loving. How beautiful it was, lying embowered in the twilight of the old trees; the tips of the loftiest spruces came out in purple silhouette against the northwestern sky of rose and amber; down behind it the Blair Water dreamed in silver; the Wind Woman had folded her misty bat-wings in a valley of sunset and stillness lay over the world like a blessing. Emily felt sure everything would be all right. Father Cassidy would manage it in some way.

And he had told her to “keep on”.